One Chicago Wednesdays: Did NBC’s schedule move pay off?

Now that One Chicago Wednesdays have existed for half a season, was NBC right to put Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med in one programming block?

We’re halfway through the One Chicago season, and one of the biggest talking points isn’t what’s happened on screen—but how fans got to watch it.

It was big news earlier this year when NBC revealed its primetime schedule and decided to create a “Chicago Wednesdays” block with Chicago Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago PD all airing together.

Some fans were excited. Other fans were surprised. Many people wondered how exactly this was going to work.

Half a season later, we have some of an idea about both the pros and cons of the alteration in One Chicago scheduling.

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In the way that NBC is most concerned with, the idea has been an unqualified success. All three shows are regularly in the Top 5 of broadcast TV programs each Wednesday night.

That means NBC is usually either coming in first or second place amongst the broadcast networks, after a few years where Wednesdays weren’t so great for them. To go from an average night to an almost sure win is a great business move.

Plus, two of the three shows are up in ratings, so it’s benefited them in that way, as well.

Chicago Fire, which looked like it could be in danger last season with live ratings hovering between 4-5 million, is now healthy again with numbers between 7-8 million each week.

And for the annual crossovers, it makes for awfully convenient viewing, because the story is told all in one night—instead of audiences having to tune in three nights in a row to find out what happens.

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But that doesn’t mean Chicago Wednesdays has been perfect. Speaking of ratings, we’ve watched Chicago PD go from being NBC’s top-rated series on the night to being its lowest-rated show. The ratings for PD aren’t terrible, but they’re lagging significantly behind Fire and Med.

Is that because Chicago PD season 6 isn’t as strong as the previous five? Or is it because watching three straight hours of the same franchise is a bit much for some people? Is there viewer fatigue? There’s no way to really tell, and honestly, there’s no reason it couldn’t be both.

It’s a big ask to get people to sit in front of their TV’s for three hours, especially in the middle of the week, when they’re dealing with school nights and work the next morning. But that’s not the only question mark over the new incarnation of One Chicago.

While the One Chicago shows cross over and are billed as one unit (it’s in the name!), they are not completely interconnected. Week to week, one show doesn’t know what the other two are doing, and seeing them all air back to back to back has made that painfully obvious.

For example, Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) has been running a whole undercover operation for most of this season on Chicago Med but there’s been no mention of it at all during his scenes on Chicago PD.

Gabriela Dawson left Chicago permanently in the season premiere of Chicago Fire, but there’s not been anything about her brother Antonio’s (Jon Seda) reaction to it over on PD. Given that Monica Raymund only returned to wrap up her storyline on Fire, obviously there wasn’t time for a scene between the two on either show, but even a mention of Gabby would’ve been nice since this is his sister.

When big things happen for characters that should affect other characters, we’re not seeing that happen. It’s not easy to do (it’d require the writers on all three shows to keep in contact with one another about what they’re writing), but the way the shows are viewed now makes that stand out and not in a great way.

Plus, the stacking of episodes makes it seem like so many big things are happening in such a small time. The week of Nov. 7 is one such example. The hospital has a chemical scare on Chicago Med, and Jay Halstead almost gets shot an hour later on Chicago PD.

But it just feels like another week on Chicago PD, and neither Halstead brother discusses either huge moment with the other. We have no frame of reference for how time works in this universe anymore, except for our own—which is seeing all of this coming at us at once.

It’s been great fun to see all three shows together, and one certainly can’t fault NBC for it because it does make for wonderful promotional material and even better ratings. But airing one franchise block has come with its quirks, and perhaps we’ll see some of those addressed in the second half of the season.

What have you thought of the Chicago Wednesdays schedule so far? Like it, love it, or not really? Tell us your opinion of NBC’s schedule plans in the comments below.